In the field of tissue products, such as facial tissue, bath tissue, table napkins, paper towels and the like, the cross machine direction (CD) stretch of a sheet of paper is an important characteristic or property. As tissue products tend to fail in the cross machine direction, an increase in the CD stretch will generally increase the durability and strength of the tissue product at a given tensile strength. Similarly, increasing CD stretch may also improve the hand feel of the tissue product in-use. Increased CD stretch may also improve the manufacturing efficiency of tissue products, particularly the efficiency of converting operations, which would benefit from increases in strength and durability. Thus, it may be desirable to increase the amount of CD stretch over that which is obtained by conventional methods and found in conventional sheets. For example, a creped tissue may have a CD stretch of about 4 to about 5 percent. These levels of CD stretch have been increased in through-air dried uncreped tissues, such as those disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,017,417, 7,156,953 and 7,294,229, to about 10 percent. While these products have increased CD stretch, the need remains for tissue basesheets having even higher degrees of CD stretch while retaining other important sheet properties.
Furthermore, many methods for increasing stretch tend to decrease tensile strength. For example, creping is often used to increase machine direction stretch, but creping tends to decrease the strength of the web. Similarly, foreshortening of the web in the CD can reduce CD tensile strength. As both tensile and stretch are important to web durability, it is desired to simultaneously have both high CD tensile and high CD stretch to maximize the durability of the web in the CD. While MD and CD tensile can be increased by refining or strengthening agents, it is not desirable to significantly increase the MD tensile as this excessively reduces the softness of the web. As such, the need remains for tissue basesheets having even higher degrees of CD stretch and CD tensile while retaining other important sheet properties.